Jumping Into the Deep End of the Carpool Lane

Morning is entirely too early to deal with dropping M off at school.

Admittedly, my wife and I are novices at managing the carpool lane, but we’re also working with a kindergartner that just turned 5. Some of these other parents have been doing this for going on six years — or longer if they’ve got older kids — and have their drop-off maneuvers down to a science.

Unlock car door. Kiss-like motion. And boom — they’re gone. They’re minivan ninjas.

Meanwhile, we’re slooooow.

We’ve got to stop the car. Walk around to M’s side. Open door. Undo car seat buckle. Get backpack on her. Hug. Kiss. Tell her to go inside. Get back in the car. Roll down the window and tell her to go inside again when she inevitably (albeit awesomely) stops to turn around and wave and yell, “I love you! I hope you have the best day ever!,” at whichever one of us is dropping her off. M has done that every day, so I’d feel kind of bad if I just ditched her at the curb and sped off.

Plus, as previously mentioned, the door to my daughter’s school is too heavy for her to open, so we’ve got to wait and watch to make sure she gets inside.

What if we didn’t wait and she somehow got trapped outdoors and went feral? That could totally happen. I do not want to be the parent of the deadliest kindergartner.

Slowly but surely, however, we’re getting the hang of drop-off. Strategies employed thus far include: 1. Arriving right when the doors to the school are unlocked so there’s not as much traffic behind us, and 2. Waiting in line until we can pull up as far as possible in front of the school so we don’t cause a major backup when we get M out.

Most of the other parents seem to understand what we’re going through, giving us knowing nods. Tiny kid, second week — we’ll be pros at this soon enough.

But I did get an eye roll from an SUV mom the other day.

Jaded sixth-grade parents. They’ve seen it all, man.

Anybody have any tips for efficient carpool lane drop-off techniques? Bonus points if they still incorporate hugs into the procedure.

Kindergarten Begins

It can’t bode well for the future of M’s academic career that her first homework assignment came back marked, “Check directions and redo.”

Homework, revised.

You see, rather than circling the big shapes with a blue crayon as the instructions clearly state, she circled them with a pencil. And there go her chances for making valedictorian.

Also, I had no idea they give out homework in kindergarten now. For the record, both my wife and I individually deny one of us incorrectly told M how to do the worksheet. But it’s not like the kid can read, so somebody had to tell her what to do.

This was M’s first week of full days at kindergarten. The door to the building is too heavy for her to open by herself. Her Hello Kitty backpack is as big as she is. At lunch, she gets to have chocolate milk. She’s crazy about going to school.

I’m so excited. Kid, sometimes I wish you’d never grow up, but apparently you have to, so c'mon — let’s learn some stuff.

Scratch that — let’s learn everything.

How is everybody else adjusting to the new school year?